


Maria Mollinue's Donor

by AuthorLoremIpsum



Series: The Fringes of Arcane Science [2]
Category: Fringe (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, The Glass Scientists (Webcomic)
Genre: AU, Autopsy, Body Horror, Clockwork - Freeform, Gen, Gore, Jack the Ripper - Freeform, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Organs, Surgery, Violence, Violence against women, canon adjacent, casefic, watson style storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2020-10-24 07:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20701940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorLoremIpsum/pseuds/AuthorLoremIpsum
Summary: A woman is found dead in Whitechapel, presumably another victim of the legendary and gruesome Jack The Ripper.Holmes does not think so, and when the mortician overseeing her autopsy is killed while her corpse seems to have absconded in the nude, he turns to the Society once again for advice in this mysterious ticking case.





	1. Prologue - A Ripper's Victim

The sound of creaking wheels filled the silent morgue as Maria Mollinue's body rolled in upon a gurney. The mortician pushing it, Robert Mort, hummed a sea shanty under his breath as he placed her body beside the table containing his tools for autopsy. Sharp blades, large scissors for cutting bone, a saw even, such danger for the living and dead.

Mr. Mort turned away, crossing the room to find his gloves in the drawer of his desk. It was a shame to have to cut open such a beautiful woman, for even in death Ms. Mollinue was beautiful. Amber skin, long wavy hair the color of bronze, a peaceful face that had once been sharp with wit, she had been taken too soon by the Ripper. A deep gash across her stomach suggested he'd robbed her of her womb like some of the others, and a gouge in her chest suggested he'd stolen her heart as well.

Truly, truly a shame.

Robert Mort continued to hum as he found his gloves, thick rubber with fabric lining, ensuring no blood upon his hands. He paused, picking up a portrait of his wife sitting upon the desk, smiling fondly. Any day now she would go into labor, Robert only hoped he was there to help her bring their child into the world. A little boy, or perhaps a little girl of their very own.

So lost in the euphoria of the future was he that he did not hear the gurney squeak, he did not hear the telltale ticking, he did not hear the shifting of metal tools or the padding footsteps. Behind him, Ms. Mollinue's eyes snapped open and she slowly sat up, staring at him with the eyes of a feral caged creature. She stood, the sheet covering her mutilated body slipping away, and took a scalpel from Robert's tray of tools.

The mortician didn't notice her approach until she threw an arm around him and sunk the scalpel into his neck once, twice, three times. As he choked and pulled away, she ran for the metal ramp that led to the surface, blade in hand. Mollinue scrambled up the shute like an animal on all fours, throwing open the doors and fleeing into the night, nude and armed.

Robert Mort, on the other hand, collapsed to the floor, clinging to his neck as blood squirted through his fingers from the deep wound. His eyes went hazy, and his last thoughts were of his wife, alone now.


	2. The Corpse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite being sleep deprived, Holmes still manages to get involved with every weird case he can

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: hhhhh i accidentally posted chapter two here instead of chapter one and didn't noticed for a week fml

Sherlock Holmes was an early riser by rule, if he had any intention to do work during the day, he would be up long before I and hard at work. On days where nothing had yet crossed his path, he would sleep for longer, languishing in his boredom. Often in either case, I'd have to drag him to breakfast unless he was already waiting for me. And also often, he was bright eyed and alert, it was difficult to catch him dozing or tired.

This morning, however, he joined me at breakfast with deep shadows beneath his eyes and a tired shuffle to his gait. He sat heavily and rubbed his eyes, "John if you'd be so kind to pour me some tea, or coffee perhaps, I'd play any piece you liked upon my violin."

"You seem exhausted Sherlock," I said, standing to indeed retrieve tea from the waiting pot for my friend. "Were you at work long last night?"

"Not at all!" Cried he. "I was woken time and time again by nightmares! And not the ones I have told you of before either. These were new and horrific and deeply unsettling."

Nodding, I poured a generous cup and added two sugars, as I knew he wasn't fond of bitter tea when not at work. I placed the cup before him and touched his shoulder, "Do you wish to tell me of them? Or is it something you wish to think on first?"

"I should like to ruminate, perhaps ask Dr. Maijabi if he knows anything about dreams." Holmes sipped his tea quietly, looking incredibly tired. "Do tell, is there anything of interest in the papers?"

I sat again across from him and frowned. "Another body found of the Ripper's, womb and heart removed and the poor woman left to bleed out."

"Her name?"

"Maria Mollinue, a seamstress."

Holmes frowned, "Then it is not the Ripper."

"Pray, how do you know?"

"All of his other victims have been harlots and street women, never a respectable businesswoman. This should prove interesting."

"Perhaps he simply mistook her for someone else?" I suggested.

Holmes shook his head, "He's not that careless. He- oh! Perhaps Lestrade has come to ask us about this?"

Only then did I hear the footsteps tramping up to meet us. The familiar face of Lestrade marched into our dining room and nodded firmly, "Glad you're both up, I need you to come with me."

"Something has happened?" Holmes asked coolly, sipping his tea as if nothing remarkable could possibly happen.

Yet Lestrade nodded, "Aye, and the whole Yard is at a loss."

"Not truly surprising."

"There's no time to waste, you must come with me down to the Yard before we lose much more time."

"Might you at least give us a brief of what we are to expect?"

"A corpse is missing and our mortician is dead, though it appears he was murdered BY the corpse."

Holmes and I shared a look, immediately thinking of our new friends at the Society for Arcane Sciences.

"We'll have to make a stop to pick up an expert," I said as Holmes jumped to his feet and ran to dress, his exhaustion forgotten.

"And who exactly would be an expert on murderous corpses?" Lestrade asked with a scowl.

"Well, Dr. Frankenstein for one. For another, perhaps a new friend of ours." I smiled, "One of them catches ghosts after all."

Lestrade’s frown became one of confusion, but before he could ask, Holmes raced back out, handed me my Webley, and shoved us all out the door. This was going to be quite interesting, he'd decided.

A cab was waiting for us on the curb and we took our seats, rattling off towards the Society. When we told Lestrade that our expert was likely there, he scoffed. "You're consorting with mad scientists now Holmes? I thought you better than that."

"On the contrary, I am only a step or two away from one myself," he said nonchalantly, watching out the window as the street rolled by. "If you like, I can explain things while Watson retrieves our expert."

"I think I'd much appreciate it, Holmes."

With a nod, I stepped down from the carriage and jogged up the marble steps to the doors of the Society. Twice I knocked and after a moment, Ms. Pidgley opened the doors and smiled. "Welcome back Doctor Watson! I'm afraid most of the Lodgers are asleep right now."

"That is a shame, but perhaps you could tell me if there would be any who are experts in raising the dead?"

She gasped softly, "I'm afraid not! We don't have Doctor Frankenstein among us, though perhaps Doctor Maijabi?"

I shook my head, "I don't think so, this is not a matter of ghosts."

"Oh? Has something happened?"

"A murder at the Yard, one performed by a corpse."

"That's terrifying! I hope it isn't actually the dead rising..."

"Dead Rising?" Repeated Doctor Jekyll, approaching us, looking as if he'd only just arrived and only had time to remove his hat and cloak.

I nodded, "So it would seem, perhaps you could assist us Jekyll?"

He considered this, and nodded, donning his hat. "It'd be easier than trying to rouse the Lodgers. I can at least survey what may be helpful."

"Good luck gentlemen," Rachel said to us as we turned to return to the carriage.

Lestrade frowned as we entered. "Doctor Jekyll."

"Inspector Lestrade," he greeted with a smile.

"You're acquainted," Holmes noted as the cab started with a lurch.

"Vaguely," Lestrade said sourly. I'd come to the conclusion that he wasn't fond of Rogue Science. But he said no more as we drove to the Yard in quiet.

Through the familiar building we trekked, and I noticed Jekyll looking uneasy behind us. I offered him a smile and he returned it, sheepish and embarrassed. “I’ve been here before, trying to keep my friends from prison. It is not easy I tell you, managing rogue scientists.”

“If it is anything like managing Holmes, I’m sure I can imagine,” I offered, giving a lighthearted chuckle.”He’d fit right in as a part of your society.”

“Except unlike them he is not a threat to the rest of society,” Lestrade declared as we turned towards the morgue. Holmes glanced at me with a sly smile, for he and I both knew that wasn’t quite true. He was as dangerous as many criminals we’d put away, for different reasons of course.

We reached the top of the stairs and Lestrade bid us pause.

“I’ve kept everyone out so we didn’t damage the footprints left behind,” he said.

Holmes smiled, “Well! That’s wonderful! We best all take our shoes off so as not to further contaminate the scene.”

“Barefoot in a morgue?” Lestrade said, scowling as Holmes began to step out of his shoes. Holmes glanced around, “Ah, only me then? You best stay on the steps till I’ve gotten a look. Come on, not a moment to waste!”

He trotted down the stairs, Jekyll and I shared a look, and we followed.

The morgue was a white tiled room with grey walls, one wall lined with the sliding beds where corpses would rest, all but one of them closed and locked. The body of the mortician I recognized lay on the ground and I flinched upon seeing the gaping wound in his neck, because I knew he was to be a father, and it pained my heart to see him like this, taken from us too soon. A bloody puddle had formed around him, and from it traveled small footprints scampering across the downwards metal ramp on one wall that opened onto the street. Officers guarded it outside but the door was thrown open and looked out onto the street where the bloody prints travelled.

Jekyll and I stayed near the wall, watching Holmes delicately creep across the room, eyes scanning the floor for further prints. He raised a hand and gestured to the floor, “Here, muddied prints, faint but present.”

“You’re not usually so willing to share Holmes,” I commented, watching him work.

He glanced up, frowning. “Well, when out of my depth, I ask. And considering these prints indicate the body atop the table stood and ran, I am quite at a loss.”

He knelt near the body and examined the bloody prints, “Yes, see look, there’s a splash on these prints of the tag put around the toe to identify the body!”

“The tag is over here Holmes!” Jekyll called, pulling on his very nice gloves to pick up a small, cardboard tag soaked with blood at the base of the ramp. He frowned, reading it, “Maria Mollinue, the dead woman killed by the Ripper.”

“I’m not convinced it was the Ripper,” Holmes said sharply, leaning over to pick up the mortician’s notes from his desk. He glanced at Jekyll once more. “Tell me, how would one raise the dead, Doctor Jekyll?”

The doctor frowned, placing the tag once more and moving beside me near the entrance. Lestrade had walked down and was leaning against the wall behind me, watching the investigation with suspicion.

“Well,” Jekyll began, “Frankenstein’s memoirs are the closest thing we have to actual reference to raising the dead, and it suggested simultaneously the use of galvanism as well as alchemy to construct body parts one could not acquire via exhuming bodies, neither of which this lab is equipped for. So unless the mortician somehow accidentally found some new way to resurrect Miss Mollinue, I doubt he was the one to actually do this.”

Holmes came over to us and displayed the notes. “He’d just gotten finished examining her body preliminarily, she was missing her heart as well as a significant portion of her intestines, she should not be alive.”

“So someone else killed Mort,” Lestrade said.

“No, Miss Mollinue’s footprints most certainly suggest she did.”

“But she was dead! How on earth do you even know the footprints are hers?”

Holmes frowned, “Do you not recall the aptly named Study In Scarlet, Lestrade? I told you that you can judge a man’s height from the length of his stride. And this is very much true-” he pointed to the footprints- “of a woman documented at five foot three.”

“So you want me to tell the men to look for a dead woman running in the streets nude?” Lestrade snapped, gesturing.

“Yes precisely!”

“Gentlemen!” Jekyll spoke up sternly, looking between them. “Fact of the matter is, her body is gone. We ought to be looking for her, or her thief, regardless of if she is alive or not!”

I nodded, looking to the others, and watching them both sigh in defeat. With a nod, Lestrade climbed upstairs to tell the men on patrol to look for Miss Mollinue, or her body, whichever came first. This left the three of us in the morgue once more.

“How do you know she was the one who killed the mortician?” Jekyll asked, looking at the footprints.

“Who else could have made dusty footprints coming from the table to the mortician?” Holmes answered, and even I could tell it was fairly straightforward. 

Jekyll blushed and looked away. “Yes, of course. I’m afraid I’m not so well versed in the art of detecting. I rather feel foolish about this, and Hyde is certainly not helping me focus.”

Holmes and I shared a confused look. I gestured vaguely, “He speaks to you Jekyll?”

“Frequently, if not constantly,” he answered nonchalantly, removing his hat. “Though, I’d rather not discuss this here, please understand that Hyde isn’t thought well of among the police.”

“Quite understandable,” I said, despite noticing how Holmes frowned at the idea of Hyde being a criminal. “But have you any theories as to what is going on?”

“I think, somehow, either Miss Mollinue was not dead, or whoever killed her did something to bring her back,” Jekyll said, sounding thoughtful.

Holmes sighed in irritation, “Forming theories with scraps of evidence, terrible habits you must stop encouraging Watson!”

“I wish to know what our advisor thinks, just as you ask me,” I explained, folding my arms behind my back. Holmes rolled his eyes again, neated Miss Mollinue’s papers, and climbed up the staircase to pick up his shoes. We followed, quiet and thoughtful. 

To our surprise, upstairs, Lestrade was rushing to meet us with another officer, looking startled. Holmes tugged on his shoes, hopping over to meet him. “What? What is it Lestrade? Stop stammering man spit it out!”

“Miss Mollinue! She attacked a beat cop down the road and collapsed, dead once more!”

Holmes looked to Jekyll and I, I shared an alarmed look with Jekyll, and we ran to follow Lestrade.


	3. Maria's Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Autopsy Leads to a Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhahaha i realized i updated this as part of the last chapter so DOUBLE UPDATE  
GO BACK AND READ CHAPTER TWO IT'S COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOW  
I FIXED IT

It was a short walk to where Miss Mollinue had reappeared, and an officer was holding his side in pain when we found him. I gave him a precursory look and sent him off with another to be taken to the hospital and treated properly.

“The damn madwoman came at me with a scalpel!” he babbled as he was led away. “She’s heartless I tell you! No damn heart!”

“Yes but where is she?” Holmes insisted.

He pointed down the alley, face ashen as he was lead off. I drew my Webley, and took the front of the party, approaching the alley and moving forward slowly. Holmes was at my shoulder, and I could feel his firm grip on my upper arm, ready to pull me from harm’s way should something spring from the darkness. Glancing back, Lestrade had held out an arm, forcing Jekyll to remain at the mouth of the alleyway as we snuck forward.

But we didn’t have to go far, for as soon as we peeked round the corner into the shadows between buildings, there lay miss Mollinue’s corpse upon the ground. She was filthy and completely nude, face down on the ground with her limbs splayed in awkward directions, a bloodied scalpel having fallen from her hand.

Holmes stepped forward, kneeling and turning her over.

Her eyes were open, frozen in death, unfocused and wild, mouth hanging open slightly and bloodied. On her chest was a deep stab wound over her heart, and it seemed to have been bleeding recently, as did the deep cavity in her stomach area. Holmes stared at the corpse, eyes scanning for some hint as to how she’d been brought back to life, and finding nothing.

Or so i thought.

For he reached out and into her abdomen, I cried out for him to stop as he grasped something and pulled. With a horrific wet noise, he pulled out a length of what appeared to be rubber tubing, looking to me in confusion. “Now, why on earth would the Ripper put such a thing inside his victim?”

“He wouldn’t,” I answered, brow furrowing. I called out to Jekyll and Inspector Lestrade, and they came running, both halting and gasping at the sight of Holmes having pulled out the woman’s intestines, at a glance. 

“Holmes what do you think you’re doing?” Lestrade cried as my friend stood, wiping his bloodied hand with a kerchief.

“We need to further examine the body, but not at the Morgue,” he began despite Lestrade’s spluttering. “And Jekyll I should like your advice, so, where ought we take Miss Mollinue?”

Jekyll blinked and seemed rather flustered to be consulted so plainly, “Well, there are plenty of labs at the Society, only one or two unused, but I may be able to organize us a space.”

“Absolutely not!” Lestrade snapped, putting himself between the body and Jekyll. “I will not have a bunch of mad scientists dissecting a victim and experimenting on her corpse!”

“You have my word, none of us would do such a thing,” Jekyll insisted, putting a hand to his chest. Lestrade’s eyes narrowed, “Your word isn’t good enough Doctor Jekyll, I know you’ve talked your way out of many of your ‘friends’ doing prison time.”

“Then you have my word,” Holmes said, putting a hand on Jekyll’s arm and looking at Lestrade sternly.

I glanced at the body at our feet, for I thought I’d heard something. Lestrade sighed, folding his arms. “Fine. But on your word, if she returns in pieces or green or what have you, it will be on your head Holmes.”

“You have my word, Lestrade,” he said coldly.

Lestrade signalled and the attending officers came forward to pick up Miss Mollinue’s body, placing her upon a stretcher and carrying her along. Jekyll somehow managed to sweet talk the officers into letting us borrow a coach back to the Society, so we wouldn’t be carrying a dead body along the streets in broad daylight and scaring unaware bystanders. Holmes paced like a restless animal as the body was loaded safely into a coach and we with it.

We returned to the Society, this time without Lestrade, and the three of us were left to carry Miss Mollinue’s covered body into the building. Regrettably, the lodgers had awoken by then and were all too interested in our cloaked package. They milled about as we hefted the corpse to an unused laboratory on the bottom floor. I quickly realized it was an unused one because it only contained tables and cabinets, lacking none of the mess of the other labs we had seen.

A decent number of the Lodgers crowded in the doorway, peeking in and mumbling until Holmes threw back the sheet. Gasps of horror filled the room and I heard someone gag.

The small woman I’d come to know as Ms. Flowers stepped forward, trembling. “My god, what happened to her?”

”That’s what we aim to find out,” Holmes said, shedding his coat and turning to the body.

I noticed the other Lodgers turning to go, but Ms. Flowers seemed rooted to the spot, her eyes wide with utmost horror. She watched, unable to move, as Holmes and Jekyll gathered tools to cut into the body, and I went to her side to make her look away as they set to work.

She shuddered in revulsion, “Who could do that to that poor woman?”

“Someone wanting to pretend to be the Ripper himself,” I said gently, trying to nudge her towards the door.

“He sounds like a monster,” she whispered, looking at her hands and folding her arms weakly.

“I’m sure he may be one.” 

We’d reached the doorway when Ms. Flowers paused, brow furrowing. “Doctor Watson, do you hear that?”

I paused too, listening, only hearing the sounds of cutting flesh and our associates’ soft conversation about the autopsy. “No I don’t believe I do. Wait, there is something!” For there indeed was.

Under the sounds of the autopsy, I could hear the faint ticking of a clock.

“Stop the autopsy!” Flowers cried, racing over to the body. “There’s something inside her! It’s ticking!”

Jekyll and Holmes stepped back, sharing a puzzled and alarmed look. Flowers, who had been so repulsed before, leaned over the bloodied body- now with a much larger wound in her abdomen and more of that strange rubber tubing hanging out- and leaned in closer to inspect the wound in the chest. She tilted her head, listening to the mysterious ticking noise, small mouth drawn up into a frown.

“Miss Flowers perhaps you should back away,” Jekyll said with deep worry in his voice, reaching out to her.

“Here,” she said, pointing to the wound. “You must open up here, but be careful, that clockwork sounds impossibly delicate.”

“Clockwork?” Holmes repeated, astounded.

“You think someone’s put a clockwork device in there?” Jekyll asked, gently pushing her aside and picking up a large blade. Flowers looked ill again, turning away, “That is what it sounds like, Doctor.”

He took a steadying breath, “Cover your ears.”

I looked away and Miss Flowers covered her ears as he cut into the dead woman, her bones snapping painfully as he worked. Slowly, meticulously, Doctor Jekyll opened the flesh on her chest and bones beneath to expose what lay inside her ribcage. We all leaned in to investigate and found ourselves faced with a very, very strange sight.

Beneath the bloodied bones, ticking away, was some sort of device made of bronze colored metal. It seemed about the size of an apple, round and smooth, shifting quietly and ticking loudly. How on earth it was built under her rib cage was beyond me at the time, and all I could do was stare.

To my horror, and Ms. Flower’s, Jekyll held up a saw and leaned in to cut her remaining ribs away, a determined look on his face.

“Be careful!” Ms. Flowers exclaimed. “You might break it!”

“I know how to cut bones without damaging organs, worry you not,” he said, trying to keep steady as he began to saw. Ms. Flowers and I both turned away, covering our ears against the grotesque sound of bone being sawed apart. It sent me back to my time at war, memories I’d hoped to forget. Holmes stepped back, arms folded, brow furrowed in thought.

Eventually, all the ribs were cut away, carefully placed in a bowl beside the table. I heard Jekyll say some soft words of apology as he began to lift the bloodied device out. Again I was struck with revulsion, for the device would not come away, as it was attached via more rubber tubes into her cardiovascular system in place of her heart. This too he cut, placing the device into a small bowl where it continued to tick more loudly than before.

Then returning to the matter of the tubing in her gut, with Holmes’ help, they managed to remove a solid meter or so of rubber tubing that had been sewn into her intestines on both ends where a segment had been removed.

“Surgically, I might add,” Jekyll said, coiling the tubing into yet another bowl. “Whoever cut this poor woman apart knew mostly what they were doing.”

“They didn’t manage to save her,” I remarked without hiding the bitterness in my voice, for nothing irked me more than terrible fools playing doctor.

“That they did not,” Jekyll hummed. “It’s appeared to have torn her primary arteries and vein, likely from the strain of the device.” He paused, as if listening to something. “Hyde, seems to agree about the killer. He says if someone was just trying to kill her, they’d have not bothered to replace her heart and guts. Which begs the question, why did they try to save her?”

He gave pause, looking towards Flowers, who hadn’t been able to stop staring at the strange device in the bowl. “Sophia? Are you well?”

She shook her head and stood straighter, “Sir, I would very much like the chance to deconstruct this device! I’ve never seen anything like it, and I feel like, perhaps, I might be able to help identify the craftsman! And well, if we find out who the creator of the device is, we can find miss Mollinue’s murderer.”


	4. The Best Clockwork In London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ms. Flowers sends Holmes and Watson on an extraordinary lead

Sofia Flowers’ lab was not what I had expected when Jekyll explained she was an entomological intelligencer. I had imagined many little boxes containing live specimens of various insects and plants in various pots, but alas, her lab was far more… mechanical than that. 

As we entered, small butterflies made of bronze with wings made of paper and aluminum foil went flying at our entrance, flitting across the room and hanging themselves neatly on a rack on the other wall. I saw small slugs made of rubber wiggling in circles in a box on one desk to the left under shelves full of materials in crates, and heard a soft ticking noise that seemed to permeate the whole room. There were some specimens of live insects in pretty glass enclosures and a case with pinned butterflies on the wall to the right near a bookshelf full of entomology books.

Holmes seemed fascinated by the little clockwork creations toddling about on the floor and I saw his eyes light up as a praying mantis creation climbed into his hand and allowed him to lift it up.

“Please be careful gentlemen,” Flowers said as she placed the cleaned clockwork heart onto her work space. “Many of my creations are incredibly fragile, they take a delicate touch to handle.”

Holmes allowed the little mantis to crawl from his hand onto the desk, smiling fondly. “They’re beautifully crafted, Miss Flowers.”

“Thank you,” she said, sounding distracted as she picked up some very fine looking tools and began to remove the casing of the clockwork heart. I strolled over behind her to observe, but she cast a look at me that told me to step back.

With careful movements, she unscrewed the panels and peeled them back one by one to reveal a knot of clockwork pieces that ticked away until she pulled the coil out and it went silent. She lifted the device, donning a pair of glasses with little lenses to examine it closer. “There are small rubber valves inside that the clockwork manually opened and closed, they’re structured to simulate the beating of an actual heart. The tubes were sewn into her aorta and vena cava, allowing the blood to flow.”

“Sounds like it could’ve actually worked as a heart, for a while,” I remarked, moving closer with a bit of hesitance. She nodded, “The beating of the heart and breathing would even wind it, with how this is constructed. However, given we could hear it ticking outside her body, I believe it was too strong for her flesh to bear the strain, and tore itself off and caused her to bleed internally. Everyone believed her dead because it didn’t create a heartbeat.”

“She didn’t bleed out due to her wounds,” I offered as a counterpoint. Flowers nodded in thought, “Perhaps her, grisly surgeon did something to cause the wounds not to bleed. Such chemicals exist in the world. Regardless, the rubber tubing wouldn’t have done much to simulate her intestines.”

“Certainly.”

Holmes joined us at the desk, looking over. “Flowers, surely you know some of the clockwork community in London, do you know anyone aside from yourself who could construct this?”

She thought for a moment, slowly turning one of the cogs around and watching the valves and rubber sacks open and close. “Only, two. And both of them work at my father’s clockshop.”

“Your father?”

“Yes, he and his apprentice taught me everything. Of course, when I turned from making clocks to making creatures, that was when my science became mad instead of art and business.” She set it down, picking up some small tools, a strange focused look in her eye. “I’m going to be, quite busy with this. You two ought to visit my father.”

“Can you tell us his address?”

She did, and I recognized the name of the shop, Flowers and Company Clockwork. We left her deeply focused on the strange clockwork and exited her lab, going downstairs to stop by the morgue. Doctor Jekyll greeted us, surprisingly chipper for a man who’d spent the last hour sewing back up a woman he’d autopsied. We explained what Flowers had said and he promised to telegram any information he heard while taking Miss Mollinue’s body back to Scotland Yard.

With a farewell, we departed the Society, catching a cab and riding to the clock shop Flowers had told us about. Tall clocks filled the front window, ticking in hypnotic uniform, pendulums swinging back and forth. Holmes tugged me inside after I got distracted watching the intricate clockwork tick and tock in the front window. A bell over the door rang as we entered the main room, where the ticking was incredibly loud.

We saw a man with similar complexion to Ms. Flowers writing in a book behind the main desk, and he looked up as we approached. “Ah! Hello gentlemen, how may I help you?”

“Mr. Flowers? I’m Sherlock Holmes and this is my partner Doctor Watson. Your daughter sent us,” Holmes explained as we stopped before him. “We’ve had an incident and she thinks you may be able to help us.”

He blinked and swallowed hard, “Let’s, discuss this in the back room.”

We followed him back behind a door at the rear of the room and when it was locked, he looked to us with worry lining his face. “Has something happened to Sophia? Is she alright?”

“She’s quite fine,” Holmes explained coolly, “She actually sent us here to try and find answers for something else that happened.”

“Do explain then, what happened?”

Holmes looked to me and I gave a quick summary of the case so far, a woman with clockwork organs that Sophia had only said only she, Mr. Flowers, and his apprentice could create. Mr. Flowers looked ill as Holmes concluded our summation, “You suspect me of murder then?”

“Certainly not sir, we are here to ask if you know anyone who might be able to make something like this, you yourself seem far too busy for such a feat,” Holmes explained.

He shook his head, “Not that I know of, unless there is a travelling clocksmith. And-”

We all looked up at the sound of a door shutting as a young man walked in, looking between us. “Uh, Mister Flowers? Is something going on?”

Mr. Flowers sighed, “No Alec, nothing’s wrong. Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson are just looking into something for Sophia.”

“Is she alright?” Alec asked, frowning, setting his box down.

“She’s fine, she’s helping investigate a case.” And he explained the situation to Alec in turn before looking to us. “By the way, the is Alec Cunningham, my apprentice.”

Alec nodded, “It’s a pleasure to meet you gentlemen, though such a shame you’ve come to our establishment over something so upsetting.”

“It’s quite alright,” Holmes insisted. He paused, frowning, “Is there someone in the back room?”

I listened too and heard a voice, the same one Holmes must’ve heard. Cunningham blushed, “Oh! I must’ve left her running! Oh no!”

Mr. Flowers chuckled, “You’re going to spoil our show Alec! Go turn her off.”

“Her?” Holmes repeated, looking suspicious.

Mr. Flowers smiled and nodded, “Yes her, our automaton. Come, may as well show you, lighten the spirits.” The four of us went to the back room where a sheet with a human torso underneath was moving. A voice was coming out of a gramophone speaker that stuck out of it. _ “My name is Auta. My name is Auta. My name is Auta. _”

Cunningham flipped a switch and the automaton went dead, hands dropping to either side and head lolling under the sheet. He grabbed the fabric and pulled it away, revealing a porcelain torso with lovely features and a mouth like a puppet’s. Gently, almost lovingly, Cunningham pushed her torso upright and folded her hands together, and like a proud father he presented her to us. “This is Auta, our masterpiece.”

“She’s a beauty,” I said, despite how the creation set me on edge, making the hair upon the back of my neck bristle.

“Indeed, how does she speak?” Holmes asked. Despite his calm, I sensed a shift in him, for he too was unnerved by the automaton.

“Wax cylinders with recordings,” Cunningham explained. “This trunk under her has a system that even allows her to answer questions!” He gestured to the gramophone, “Step up, and after I turn her on, ask her name.”

I stepped up, watching him turn the crank and Auta’s eyes flickered open.

“What’s your name?” I asked into the gramophone, stepping back.

There was a clicking noise, and Auta’s head twitched, “_ My name is Auta.” _ And she went still again. Cunningham flipped her switch and the clicking stopped. 

“Incredible!” I remarked with a smile, clasping my hands together, “Truly a leading automaton.”

“Why thank you, she’s been my project for near a year now,” Cunningham said with a smile. “With Mr. Flowers of course.”

“You sell yourself short Alec, she’s practically your daughter,” Flowers laughed, making his apprentice blush harder. 

“Her structure looks almost real,” Holmes said thoughtfully. “Have you ever studied anatomy Cunningham?”

Cunningham thought for a moment, “I did for a few years, I wanted to be a doctor until I ran out of money for classes. Mr. Flowers hired me to apprentice with him soon after, it’s been going well I’d say.”

“Well, if Auta is anything to go by, it certainly is,” Holmes hummed. I could tell by his expression though, he’d gotten some insight from this conversation. “Say, gentlemen, if you were to attach clockwork to flesh, is there any possible way for it to stay attached to one’s body?”

The two shared a look, thinking.

“Well, if you’re not careful with how you attach it, it’s likely the moving parts would tear right off,” Mr. Flowers said, gesturing with one hand.

“Not to mention, that’d be terribly cruel!” Cunningham said, seeming mildly alarmed.

Holmes nodded. “I see. Perhaps you two could tell us what sort of other clocksmiths are in London?”

Mr. Flowers agreed and gave us a list of addresses before we bid our farewells and made our way towards Baker Street to rest, as the morning had left us both a bit out of sorts. Holmes looked over the list as we walked, deep in thought. “Say, John, do you think that someday, men will be made of machines and free from death?”

“Well, that gentleman Mr. Sinnett has a hand of metal,” I remarked as we strolled along. “And Miss Mollinue was alive for a short while before her heart tore free inside her chest. Someday we could be immortal this way.”

Holmes scoffed, “I very much doubt it. But, perhaps.” He looked to me and smiled sweetly, “I would not mind spending eternity with you, John.”

“Sherlock you flatter me.”

“Well I should hope so, I care about you quite a lot.”

We shared a smile between us, and went home to share a quiet evening together.


	5. It's Still Ticking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another corpse is found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the chaotic posting of this fic, seriously.  
the mistakes in the last chapters discouraged me from posting this next part, but I hope you all enjoy!

I wish I could say that the next morning we woke and dined pleasantly, though it would seem that fate would not give us such peace that day, for we were startled out of bed by the sound of Lestrade pounding on our door. When he heard our running footsteps, he called through the door: “There’s been another death! Another corpse found in the same place!”

Holmes wrenched open the door, holding his mousey brown dressing gown closed over his chest. “Another body?”

Lestrade nodded grimly, “Gutted. I’ve had it shipped to your Society with an armed guard, as I presume you want to take a look.”

Holmes looked to me as I approached and said: “A wise decision, but we cannot continue wasting time. Lestrade, you and I must go to the different clockwork stores in the city, Watson and the clockwork engineer in the Society can handle the body on their own.”

“You trust him alone with the mad scientists?” Lestrade asked, somewhat aghast. Holmes frowned, “I certainly do. We shall be along in but a few minutes, do wait for us.”

Lestrade nodded, seeming hesitant, and hurried back to the cab. The door shut and Holmes looked to me, “Will you handle the autopsy at the Society Watson? We cannot waste much more time, every minute is another death we risk.”

I nodded, “I understand, of course.” Taking him by the shoulder, I gave him a soft squeeze and we split to quickly dress ourselves. 

I dressed in old clothes, stained with my own blood from past injuries and cases, which I would not be sad to further stain working on an autopsy. Under a heavy coat, I returned to the staircase and waited for Holmes, and together we returned to the street and met with Lestrade in the police cab. We rumbled along and he began to give us the details of the man who’d been found.

“Ryan Acton, a beat cop, was making his circuit. He didn’t check in around four AM and the man who was supposed to replace him went looking, only to find his body in an alleyway with a deep wound in his chest. His body was found a few blocks off of his route, suggesting something had lured him away. He was lying in a pool of blood and seemed to be soaked in some foul smelling chemical, the replacement said it made his nose burn.”

“Perhaps that’s what the killer used to seal miss Mollinue’s wounds,” I offered to Holmes, despite how puzzled this made Lestrade. Holmes nodded in thought, cataloguing the information dutifully.

“Tell me, where did this man die?”

“Right in the heart of the Ripper’s territory. We only figured he’s one of your guys because he wasn’t the Ripper’s, favored target.”

“You’re showing some forethought Lestrade, thank you. It seems our killer is not, however.”

“He killed again so soon after Maria, perhaps he needed another heart, or something of that nature,” I said with a note of disdain.

Holmes nodded thoughtfully, “When we catch him, I shall be sure to ask. For now, Watson, you have a body to autopsy.”

The cab rumbled to a stop in front of the Society for Arcane sciences and I stepped down from the carriage. Holmes leaned out, “You are aware of what happened to the last mortician, so I beg you, my friend, don’t turn your back on the body until you are completely certain it is deceased.”

“I will not be alone Holmes, do not worry so much.” I smiled at him in a hopefully reassuring manner, “You ought to watch your own back, for the killer could still be out there.”

“Precisely why I’ll be joining their search,” the familiar voice of Doctor Jekyll hummed behind me as he strolled to meet us, tipping his hat to the pouting Lestrade. “Detective, Inspector, Doctor, it’s good to see you all. I do hope you won’t mind me accompanying you, given the nature of Miss Mollinue’s death and that of Professor Presbury, I ought to show that the Society is starting to take measures against such crimes as these.”

“You do a lot of presuming Doctor Jekyll, but I suppose having another expert along in Doctor Watson’s stead won’t do much harm.” Lestrade looked to Holmes, as if expecting him to object to someone replacing my position in our little group, but it seemed as if Holmes didn’t mind, as he offered Jekyll a hand into the carriage.

I gave them a wave, “Best of luck gentlemen.”

“And to you!” Jekyll called as the cab began to rumble along.

When it rounded a corner and disappeared out of sight, I turned and hurried into the Society. Miss Flowers was waiting for me and took me by the sleeve into the basement of the Society. Well, the upper basement, as I saw a staircase that descended even further to a heavyset door thoroughly coated with dust and sunk into the dirt. A few tools lay on the upper landing where we stood, and I could hear the distant sound of chipping stone through the floor itself. The name Mosley was carved upon it, and I did not get a good look before Flowers had pulled me into the morgue.

How shall I describe it? For it wasn’t a proper morgue like the Yard had, or like a hospital ought to have. It was as if they’d purchased used morgue chambers from some other building and had them installed along one wall, in all their rusted and dented glory. A used gurney sat against one wall, as if it’d been abandoned there, while a table took up the center of the room, circled by a few light chairs. Upon it lay the cadaver of the officer who’d been brutally killed just the night before, a table of tools laid out beside it.

And here Miss Flowers paused.

I saw a look of utter dread cross her face, and she began to wring her gloved hands in a most nervous manner.

“What’s the matter?” I asked her, sensing her unease.

“I’ve never cut into a person before,” she admitted, voice full of dread and horror. I gave her shoulder a pat, “Fret not, I’ll be doing all the cutting, you’ll just be cleaning clockwork.”

“But that’s just it!” She turned to me sharply, eyes full of horror. “You’re cutting open another human being! He was alive! He walked and talked and had a family and a life and now you’re going to cut him open just because you can! I know it’s for science but how can you stand it Doctor Watson?”

I took her by the shoulders, gently but firm. “Miss Flowers, this man is beyond suffering now, we can hurt him no more. And does it not behoove us to discover who did this to him? That we might save others this same fate? That we might bring justice to his family? And don’t you want to see if these clockwork organs are any more intricate than the others?”

She looked away, visibly conflicted. “You were fascinated by them, were you not?”

“I, I was. The heart, it was beautiful.” Flowers became ashamed, hanging her head. “I had almost hoped there were more corpses, so I could see more of this beautiful work, to learn from it. Oh I am a most horrid person aren’t I?”

“Not so,” I said. “Every person has such selfish thoughts, though your revulsion to it shows you are conscious enough to understand that it is wrong to wish such a thing.”

She nodded, and even tried to smile slightly. “Thank you Doctor Watson, that means much to me.”

I gave a nod. “Just remember, regardless of how many bones I must break to investigate this man, he is beyond suffering and pain, his soul is, elsewhere…”

What gave me pause was something I swore I heard for a moment. Flowers’ expression shifted too, and she tilted her head like a dog to listen for the sound. Slowly, we both turned to the body, which had begun to tick.

Loudly.  
I pulled my Webley from my belt and, looking to Flowers, saw her lunge and grab a forgotten crowbar from the hallway that lead to the further basement. The body upon the table gave a twitch, hands lifting and twitching as it began to seize, torso heaving up and down upon the table, creating a loud slamming sound. It caused me to flinch as I heard the wood creak, and the body writhed, falling off the table completely.

A shaking hand gripped the edge, and the man stood, eyes wide with horror and flickering around the room until they landed upon us. He stood up sharply, snatching a saw from the tool table and running at us with a shriek like a horrified animal. Flowers and I both shouted in alarm and ran in opposing directions, causing the walkng corpse to stumble, looking between us and the door desperately.

“M-Mister Acton?” Flowers stammered, shaking with her crowbar in hand.

The man’s head snapped in her direction and he began to advance on shaking legs, blood beginning to drip from the cavity in his chest as the ticking became even louder. Upon hearing the sound, however, he froze and looked down at his chest, dropping the saw in a panic.

“Ticking!” he cried, hands going to his bare chest, voice tinged with panic. “Ticking ticking never escaping the ticking and the pain and and and-” He cried out again in agony, dropping to his knees, clutching his chest.

Flowers and I ran to him, supporting him as he began to shake, continuing to ramble in a disjointed and shaking way. “Pain and cutting, cutting and pain, ticking and ticking and screaming never stops and-”

“Sir you must calm down,” I tried to insist, firm but not too loud. “You’re panicking, it will only make things worse.”

“The ticking never stops never stops it’s inside my head and-” He gave one last shout of pain, clutched his chest, and fell forward. Flowers shrieked and scrambled back, watching in horror as he began to bleed upon the floor. I stood and stepped back, staring in horror as this man died a second time, practically in my arms.

I stumbled back until I felt myself hit the wall, and slid to the ground, feeling disconnected from the whole scene. As my mind reeled with images of dying soldiers, men I hadn’t been able to save, Miss Flowers shuffled over and sat too, staring at the crumpled corpse.

“We’ll have to move him, soon,” she mumbled, sniffling like a frightened child. Numbly, I put an arm around her shoulder in an effort to comfort her, “That we will… once you’ve caught your breath...”

We sat in silence, until the shaking had subsided for us both.

At one point, one of the other lodgers came down to investigate what all the screaming was about, only to turn right back around when he saw a bloodied man sitting with his behind in the air in the doorway.

After half an hour had passed, I stood, pulled off my coat, and set about relocating the body. Flowers roused herself and helped me, until we’d laid Mr. Acton out on the table once more. She had to sit down for another moment, and I suggested she work on cleaning up the blood from his reopened wound to try and focus on something else, a suggestion she gratefully took.

With a steadying breath, I set to work on the autopsy.

I opened his chest and began to remove any sign of clockwork I could find, however the only organ that seemed to have been replaced was Mr. Acton’s heart. With a frown, I placed it in a waiting bowl of water and continued to inspect, finding nothing else out of the ordinary except for small scratch marks on Acton’s ribs, suggesting the heart had been constructed inside of him. Whoever had done this must work fast, having been able to completely remove and replace Acton’s heart in a matter of hours.

I relayed my discoveries to Miss Flowers, who was moping at the stone floor with a distracted look upon her features. She didn’t seem to come round until I told her the heart was ready to inspect.

Meanwhile, we must turn our attention elsewhere, to events I was unaware of until Holmes relayed them to me after the fact.

After two clockwork shops turning up nothing more than confused faces, Lestrade abandoned the pursuit in order to investigate Acton’s crime scene, leaving Holmes and Jekyll to continue through the addresses on foot. At about noon, the same time when Flowers and I managed to rouse ourselves to work once more, they were discussing potential motives for such crimes as these.

“It seems,” Jekyll was remarking, “that our killer is trying to subtly steal organs for some sort of nefarious purpose. Do you suppose they are trying to recreate Frankenstein’s monster?”

Holmes rolled his eyes, “It is unlikely, as morgues are plenty full when it comes to corpses, why should a live body make the difference at all?”

“If the body is still somewhat alive, would it not be easier to reanimate?”

“I’m not a mad scientist in the field of necromancy Doctor Jekyll, I don’t waste my time truly pondering how to reverse death. I am curious, however, how your subconscious is faring after Watson wandered through it.”

Jekyll frowned and looked away, thinking about his answer. “Well, according to Hyde, it’s been far quieter lately. Far fewer subconscious entities making themselves known nuisances. Whether this is a good or bad thing, I have yet to determine. But as I haven’t forcefully transformed in the two weeks since the poisoning, I can safely say I am on the road to healing. Though, Hyde is growing restless, he wants to thank you in person and buy you a drink.”

“As flattered as I am by the offer, I’m afraid I’m not one to frequent pubs and bordellos,” Holmes hummed as they rounded a corner. Ahead hung the sign of Flowers and Company Clockwork, with a young Alec Cunningham struggling with packages in his hands. 

Jekyll, being the ever helpful man, moved forward to catch a sliding box from the top, chuckling as Alec yelped in surprise from his sudden appearance. “Please, Mr. Cunningham, allow me to assist you for a moment.”

“And you are?” he asked, unsettled until he saw Holmes approaching.

“Cunningham, this is Doctor Jekyll, a friend helping us with the investigation,” my friend said, gesturing to his fellow gentleman, who tipped his hat.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Alec said, nodding. “And yes, I would greatly appreciate the help, these crates are quite heavy. They’re full of bronze rods to be shaped into gears.” With a now free hand, Alec unlocked the door and lead Doctor Jekyll inside the ticking shop.

Holmes leaned his back upon the outside as the shop door swung shut behind them. He closed his eyes to think, pondering the pieces of the puzzle they had been presented with. When he opened his eyes many minutes later, it was to frown in concern and suspicion, for Doctor Jekyll had not yet returned. 

He moved to the shop door and pushed it open, “Doctor Jekyll? We best be on our way, many more shops to visit.”

No one answered his call, so he walked into the darkened shop, door shutting behind with a dull thunk. He called again for Jekyll, and then for Cunningham, only for no one to answer. So, into the back room he went, shouldering open the door and looking inside.

He allowed himself a gasp at the sight of Doctor Jekyll lain upon the floor, limbs all akimbo and a deep cut upon his head where he had been struck with something. Holmes rushed to his side and checked his pulse, frowning deeply but relieved the man was alive.

The slightest of floor creaks was the only warning he had before a sack smelling of chloroform was thrust around his head and tied tightly around his neck. He cried out, swinging and landing a punch into his attacker, who cried out in pain. Holmes jumped to his feet and tried to move away, but already his limbs were feeling heavy and his head foggy. But on he tried to press, blindly stumbling into the front room of the shop only to trip on something unseen and crash painfully into the counter.

When he tried to stand, a foot pressed him into the ground until the chloroform and lack of oxygen made his vision go black and his body limp.


	6. The Masterpiece

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth of the creations is revealed

As I worked on putting Mr. Acton back together, Flowers had moved off to a corner to investigate the heart. I could hear her tools clicking away as she deconstructed the device, occasionally reporting small things back to me. For example, this heart was better made, with more fabric and rubber components, likely to give it more flexibility so it wouldn’t tear free of the aorta and vena cava within the chest.

From this, we drew the conclusion that whoever was committing these crimes, did not actually wish to be a murderer, but clearly thought their work more important than the lives of those they were stealing hearts from.

After I’d finished sewing Acton’s chest back together, pulling the thread tight and knotting it off with a small prayer of thanks to the man, Miss Flowers called me over to her work table.

“I found something,” she said, though her voice trembled with fear.

I moved over and she tilted her magnifying glass to show me a very small gear with twelve teeth. “Do, do you see how these teeth are crooked?”

“I do,” I said.

“Well, I, I recognize it… See, Alec, for all his um, clockwork cleverness, when he has to make small components, he’d rather cut them himself than use a press or mold. So, so often his gears this size are, are crooked!”

“You believe Cunningham crafted this heart?” I asked, frowning.

Flowers nodded, “I-I do! At first I thought it might just be a defect, but all of these small gears are hand-cut! I, even if it isn’t him, we must ask him again!”

“Calm down calm down!” I insisted, patting her shoulder gently. “We shall go to your father’s store together and ask Alec ourselves. Perhaps we can even introduce you to Auta.”

“Ow, ta?” Flowers repeated, puzzled.

“You’ll see, come along!”

Little did I know the horror about to unfold in the back room of that quaint little clockshop.

Holmes would find himself waking up, strapped down to a table with thick leather belts, one laying over his forehead to hold his head in position. Searching around, he saw he was in the back room of the clock shop, and through the door, a still unconscious Doctor Jekyll was tied to a chair, head hanging limp. The door swung shut, however, as Alec Cunningham entered the room carrying a box, his expression set grim.

“What is this Alec?” Holmes asked sharply, struggling and tugging at the restraints.

Cunningham set his box down, back turned to the bound detective. “And I thought you were clever, Holmes.”

“You are indeed the one behind the murders, aren’t you?” he asked again, a biting edge to his voice. 

“They were only murders because I have not perfected my prosthetic heart,” Cunningham snapped, glaring at Holmes. “If I had more time, if only I had more time, by god those people would still be alive. But no, that woman had to struggle, make it hard for me to install the heart, she killed herself in that regard. The man? Mr. Acton? He will live, so long as he doesn’t panic too often.”

“Is it really living then?”

“Is it really living… I’m not sure I can answer that.” He turned away from Holmes, walking over to where Auta lay under a sheet, which he dramatically removed and cast aside. “I ought to ask Auta, she will be able to answer me soon.”

“She is a machine, she can only answer what you tell her.”

“And there, you are wrong Mister Holmes.” Cunningham moved out of view, but continued to speak. “Just as Frankenstein discovered the secret of life, so too have I. I have given her a heart, a voice, and soon a brain. And with my very hands I shall bring her to life, immortal, bearing a soul crafted from the scraps of men, and she will live like no one else has.”

Again, Holmes struggled in his bonds. “Why not just kill me then? Why leave me alive?”

“Brains rot the quickest don’t you know?” he answered, as if it were obvious. “I want her to be intelligent, not a mumbling baby. When I remove your brain, it will forget its life as Sherlock Holmes, however if I replace it within Auta and animate it soon, it will retain your intelligence.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then Jekyll’s brain surely will.”

Holmes fought the urge to laugh, for Jekyll’s brain would surely be worse than his in any condition, given it was home to two minds at the moment. And he paused, while thinking of Jekyll, ignoring Cunningham’s continued rambling to listen for another grunt of pain, which he’d heard in the other room. Was Jekyll in pain?

After a moment, it sounded more like he was throwing up, but very very quietly. He couldn’t help but frown in concern, perhaps the doctor had been poisoned. 

But after a moment, Holmes heard very quiet footsteps crossing the other room, for somehow Jekyll had escaped his bonds.

A flicker of light from a hanging lamp reflected off a blade returned his attention to Cunningham.

“Of course Miss Mollinue donated the most by far, anyone knows the brain and the stomach are intimately connected,” he was saying, examining blades before picking out a large saw. He took a bucket and Holmes heard it settle underneath his head as Cunningham moved into place. “All I need is the last piece, your brain.”

Holmes swallowed hard, “Alec this is unnecessary, you know the story, any brain would suffice for your creation. You never needed to murder anyone.”

“Sherlock Holmes, begging me for his life,” Cunningham hummed. “But not for long I'm afraid. I’ll make sure Watson writes your last moments as dignified.”

The door to their right slammed open and they both looked over in alarm to see Hyde standing there, looking enraged, his clothes far too baggy and rolled up at the ankle and wrist. “I don’t think so, Cunningham.”

“Who in God’s name are you?” Cunningham snapped, raising the saw.

Hyde didn’t answer, instead he lunged with a cry, taking Cunningham around the waist and knocking him back into a cabinet. A clock tumbled from the upper shelf and crashed onto Cunningham’s head, shattering and making him cry out in pain. Hyde grabbed his wrists and tried to pin them back, but Cunningham was a stronger man, and grabbed him in turn, throwing him off and across.

The two scrambled to their feet and Cunningham grabbed a scalpel from the upset table, “You won’t stop me you blonde brat!”

“From murdering my friend? I certainly will!” Hyde cried, standing quickly. He looked to Auta and ran for her, making Cunningham panic.

“No!” he roared, “You leave her out of this!”

Hyde reached for the automaton only for Cunningham to grab his arm and drag him away from it. He yanked himself free, but not before Cunningham could swipe with the scalpel, catching Hyde’s vest and tearing into the loose fabric. Hyde ran again for Auta, grabbing the automaton’s head and moving to break it, his logic being that if he destroyed it, Cunningham would be forced to start over and they could stop him. When that failed, he reached down and turned Auta’s crank, the automaton clicking to life.

Again Cunningham came at him with the scalpel, this time managing to sink it into Hyde’s shoulder and shoving him out of the way from Auta.

But it was too late, Auta was awake, and she was suffering.

The automaton began to scream, her mouth hanging open, her face unemoting, and her voice box screaming in a painfully human way.

“It hurts!” she shrieked in pain, head twitching side to side. “Alec why does it hurt? Make it stop hurting!”

“I will I promise!” he said, panicking, reaching for the off switch.

Auta reached out and snatched his wrist, her voice dropping to a growl, furious. “You did this to me, you hurt me, I’m in pain because of you. Make this stop.”

“I’m trying, you must let go of me Auta!” he begged, thoroughly panicking.

Hyde stepped back, fumbling as he worked to undo the straps holding Holmes down. Auta grabbed Cunningham by the throat, tight enough to make him choke and splutter, gasping for air. Auta remained silent as she suffocated her creator.

This is about when Flowers and I arrived, finding the front room of the shop dark and silent, but the sounds of scuffle and choking beyond the door. Flowers threw open the door and shrieked in terror, seeing her old friend in the grips of a clockwork, porcelain monster. Admittedly, I panicked, pulling out my Webley and firing into the automaton. 

It shrieked in pain as the bullets tore through the metal and porcelain of its head and chest. It went limp, the ticking slowing to a stop, blood beginning to drip out of the metal joints of the chest, Cunningham laying on the ground and coughing for air, holding his throat.

He’d nearly been killed by his creation, so it wasn’t too dissimilar from Frankenstein, in that regard.


	7. Unwinding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes and Watson wrap things up, and a thief makes an appearance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FORGOT THIS STORY EXISTED  
IM SO SORRY  
I GOT BUSY  
BUT NOW IT'S DONE SO HURRAY

Holmes sat up upon the table, helping Hyde to undo the belts around his waist. I wanted to run to him, to make sure he was alright, but I kept my Webley trained on Cunningham lest he tried to do something. But he seemed catatonic, sitting there, staring at his broken masterpiece, which was bleeding through the holes in its porcelain torso.

“How could you?” he asked weakly, looking to me with such unhappiness in his eyes. “She was alive and you killed her you monster!”

“I wasn’t the one carving out hearts for his little project,” I said sternly, glaring at the young man with all the fury I could muster, despite how I kept looking over at Holmes to make sure he was alright.

He gave me a nod and walked to my side, taking the Webley. “Tend to Hyde, he’s injured, I will watch this one. Miss Flowers?”

Flowers startled from her frightened stupor, looking to Holmes in terror. “Y-yes?”

“Would you kindly fetch Scotland Yard?” he asked coldly, looking Cunningham in the eye with equal fury. She nodded, shaky, and seemed all too glad to run out of that horrid room.

Hyde took a heavy seat on the table and lifted his hand to show me a cut through the shoulder of his coat into his shoulder. “Hope you’re happy, Doc, got this saving your little friend.”

“Shush, you bought us enough time to get here or Cunningham would be dead too,” I hummed, inspecting the wound. “It’ll need a few stitches, but you should be fine. But, no… outfit changes, understand?” I gave him a meaningful look to try and communicate that he was not to transform much more if he didn’t want to exacerbate the wound.

He sighed heavily, but nodded. “Fine.”

As I worked to bandage his shoulder, Holmes was more interested in our suspect.

“You wanted to create life like Victor Frankenstein, and clearly you knew his methods,” Holmes said, kneeling to be eye-to-eye with the near catatonic man. “How is that so? He never told Walton how he did it, no one ever found his notes, and you expect me to believe you rediscovered it?”

Slowly, Cunningham looked up at him, expression cold. “You think Frankenstein is the only one with the knowledge how to raise the dead? You think in all that time he spent losing his mind, someone couldn’t have stolen it? They told me how to bring the body to life once I’d assembled the parts, and I would bring them my findings. We were on the verge of greatness and you’ve ruined it, Holmes…”

“You are aware that I don’t care about your greatness as you’ve murdered and caused the death of at least three people,” Holmes said, standing.

Outside we heard a whistle blowing and calling voices, the police had arrived.

Cunningham was taken away by the police to be properly interviewed, while the four of us took what remained of Auta and made our way slowly back to the Society. We saw another police carriage rumble past, this one probably carrying the body of Mr. Acton. 

“I suppose it’s a good thing, then, that Doctor Jekyll and I were caught,” Holmes hummed. “Cunningham won’t be able to hurt anyone else any longer.”

“He still stabbed me,” Hyde grumbled.

“I think you got off the lightest,” Flowers said to him, frowning in disapproval.

He rolled his eyes and we mounted the steps to the Society. Flowers introduced us to another scientist, that of Mr. Pennybrygg, and the two of them went off to another laboratory to dismantle and investigate Auta’s construction. Holmes, Hyde, and myself retired to Jekyll’s laboratory to take a moment to collect ourselves and relax.

Hyde poured us whiskey and we sat, Holmes seeming deep in thought. Again we had been presented with the evidence that someone was working beneath the law to use rogue science as a weapon against the public. First providing Presbury with the potion after he’d brought them the formula, and now giving Frankenstein’s secret to Cunningham that he might create a life of his own.

I could not help but wonder if killing Holmes would’ve been a benefit on their part.

Hyde startled me from my thoughts when he slammed down his glass and then made a noise of pain, holding his shoulder. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“What is?” I asked, frowning.

“This! All this nonsense! Some evil Society of Arcane Science selling out secrets so people can go murder each other? Look I’m not all about reputation like Jekyll is but I’d really rather me and my friends stay out of prison and out of a city wide witch hunt.”

“Does that include us?” Holmes asked quietly. 

Hyde shot a glare at him, “Maybe, maybe not, that’s none of your business is it?”

“Mister Hyde you seem to be getting slightly frantic,” I tried to say, hoping to calm him down.

“Frantic? Gee I wonder why! I got stabbed today and somehow managed to trigger a transformation at will! Sure I think it’s pretty cool but Jekyll won’t stop throwing a fit and freaking about how someday this means the transformations will become uncontrolled and we need to be careful and blah blah blah but already I won’t be able to change because of this stupid shoulder wound!” He groaned and dragged his hands down his face, “I hate everything about this!”

“Hyde, you and Jekyll seem to continue to think you’re alone in all this,” Holmes said, taking a sip from his glass. “Yet you continually forget you have the entire Society and Doctor Lanyon at your aid.”

“I haven’t forgotten at all,” he snapped back. “They don’t understand.”

“You don’t give them enough credit. Particularly doctor Lanyon.” Holmes looked up at him, “If you were wise, you would talk with him. I notice he hasn’t frequented the Society since our first encounter.”

Hyde turned away, looking hurt. “He’s, mad at Henry.”

“He’s frustrated with you both, no doubt. You lied to him for a very long time.” Holmes stood, “I recommend you speak with him, and soon. With all of this chaos and change, we need as much help as we can acquire.”

Hyde blinked, seemed to listen to something, and nodded somberly. “You’re right.”

“Will you be alright on your own.”

“Yes I suppose…”

“Then Watson and I will retire. I cannot testify for him but i have had a long and exhausting day.” I nodded in agreement and, taking his arm, we bid Hyde farewell and walked back to Baker Street.

Holmes was quiet along the walk back, and I nudged him with my shoulder. “You have a lot on your mind my dear friend.”

He hummed, “That I do. Today a man was arrested for trying to fight death with machinery. How cruel is it, to bring someone back to life after death?”

“You act as if he hadn’t murdered beforehand.”

“Well, looking past the murder, thinking about the infamous Frankenstein, would it not be cruel to reverse the death of someone who died peacefully? To bring them back to the land of the living, with no idea of who they were?”

I frowned, thinking about this, wondering why he was pondering such a thing. “Well, yes, i do think it is cruel. But, Holmes, I am not sure I would want a world without you, and would try my damndest to bring you back if I knew how.”

He looked at me in surprise, “John…”

“Of course, if you were suffering, I’d somehow find a way to move on and let you rest.” I smiled sadly and Holmes sighed.

“You are thinking of Reichenbach.”

“How can I not? I lost you. If we could spend an eternity together, I would like that.”

“You are getting poetic again.”

That made me laugh, “You never do like it when I get poetic.”

He reached out and took my hand, “Perhaps science will advance far enough that not even death will be able to separate our friendship.”

“Perhaps. But I’d rather not wake up to find myself in Auta’s position.”

We both shared a laugh, our spirits much lifted. I looped my arm through his and we walked on, talking of brighter things.

But once again, we must look to other places, where events I would not become aware of later were taking place.

After nightfall, long after Pennybrygg and Flowers had finished dismantling Auta, Flowers remained with the automaton in Pennybrygg’s lab. She turned Miss Mollinue’s clockwork heart over in her hands, staring at the light as it refracted. This device had, for some time, kept a woman alive. And before her, the corpse of a clockwork person who had been alive as well, if only for a short time and in such pain.

Auta had lungs, a heart, a stomach and intestine system, all working away to keep each other desperately alive. She’d nearly been human, but she couldn’t have been.

And now what blood she had left was on Flowers’ hands as she played with another woman’s heart.

She pondered why someone could do this to another human being, why anyone, let alone her dear friend Alec, would want to do this to an innocent person. What possibly could drive someone to commit such horrid acts? Admittedly she was fascinated, but she could never hurt anyone, let alone her little insectoid friends. 

Flowers stood, a heavy weight on her shoulders, and placed the clockwork heart alongside Auta and the other clockwork organs. She went to the window and pushed open the vents near them, allowing the smoke and steam within the room to dissipate before Pennybrygg’s androids began to rust.

And with that, she left to get supper with the other Lodgers and perhaps try to sleep off the horrors she’d seen today.

As the lab door shut and locked, something slim slipped through the open vent near the window. A curved wire that shook and wiggled until its curved end hooked around a lock at the base of the window. The owner of the wire pulled and the lock clicked softly. Gloved hands pressed upon the window and pushed, sliding it open with a quiet noise until it was open wide enough for an individual to slip through. 

A figure in dark brown clothing climbed through, a mask tied about their face and light glinting off their glasses as they crept towards the table. They opened their bag and, carefully, began to take the clockwork organs into their bag. They reached for Auta’s disconnected hand however, when they placed it in their bag, footsteps in the hallway beyond.

They scrambled for the window as the door was pushed open by Pennybrygg. He cried out in shock and horror, running after them as they vaulted out into the night, sliding down along the Society’s roof. Pennybrygg came to the window and looked out into the night, gripping the sill, and gasping in shock.

The thief fell from the edge of the roof and into the hands of something, or someone, very very large. This large shadow carried them into the night, clearing the fence around the Society with ease before taking off into the night.


End file.
